


Getting to know you

by towardsmorning



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Discussion of paralysis, Gen, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(<i>Prompt: Gen fluff where Raven and Charles know things about each other than only siblings know.</i>)</p><p>"She knew him well enough to make up for his own failings. It was the least she could do, all things considered, and it wasn't a bad job." Five steps on the way to family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting to know you

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: longest fic I have ever written, even if it's kind of five stories in a way. Secondly: I had issues with the process the character was created with from comic to screen and the way her story played out, but purely on her own merits, I have become ridiculously attached to Raven. Thirdly: no shipping, but the second one has vague mentions of romance. Because dammit, I may know next to nothing about the comicverse X-Men, but I can still be annoyed they haven't brought in the fact Mystique likes the ladies!

i. _Habits_

Raven had been staying ( _living,_ she corrected herself, except it felt strange to know that now she didn't have to move on eventually) with Charles for a month now. It was still new enough to feel strange and uneven, to send her stumbling at the slightest deviation from her previous sense of 'normal'. Everything from the oddness of such a huge house, echoing and empty in its grandeur, to the odd way everybody but Charles' eyes unfocused like she wasn't there whenever she entered a room. Not that she saw people often, truth be told. There were some maids, and sometimes Charles' mother (for the record, Raven had private suspicions that the woman's eyes didn't only go dim when Raven was present), and occasionally she heard a man talking who she supposed might be his father, but mostly they had the place to themselves. Charles didn't complain, so she wouldn't either. It suited her fine.

And yet sometimes she shivered when it was especially quiet.

On the other hand it was warm, she had her own bedroom, and Charles had delivered on his promise that she won't be hungry, so it had its benefits. Plus Charles himself wasn't bad company besides, even if she still felt weird about the fact he could see inside people's heads and he read way too much.

So there was a routine that they were starting to set up, more or less, and the fact that for the first time in that month she _couldn't find him_ was scary.

She'd looked everywhere- and in a house this big that was difficult. Her feet hurt, and it was too dark out for him to be in the grounds, so where could he be? Suddenly Raven wished she could just ask someone, wished for the first time since she had arrived that someone would actually look _at_ her, but she knew instinctively how bad an idea that was. Even if she made herself look normal, who would she say she was? What if they threw her out?

Eventually she trailed back to Charles' room and collapsed on his bed in frustration for lack of anywhere else to go. Stupid Charles was probably off somewhere reading his stupid books and-

There was a noise coming from below the bed, she suddenly realised.

Raven squeaked and fell off the bed in shock, backing away.

Screwing up her resolve, she pressed a cheek to the cool floorboards and peered underneath the bed, squinting in the low light. There was what looked like a bundle of pyjamas, and when she poked it the sound repeated, and now Raven could recognise the low moan for what it was.

"Charles?"

"Go 'way," he muttered sullenly, shifting position- uncurling so that she could catch a glimpse of red-rimmed eyes and a bleary stare. She frowned and laid her hand against the plane of his shoulder. He felt tense, even tenser than normal; like he was a little clockwork boy, spring wound up tight. When he didn't move away she propped herself uncomfortably on one elbow and peered at him in concern. He looked dreadful, and she moved the hand to his forehead in an attempt to look like she knew what to do.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?"

He shook his head, and she saw suddenly that his hands were over his ears, as though to block out some loud noise. It was completely silent in the room except for them, and she frowned in sudden understanding. Raven had times when she couldn't control herself, too- when she'd suddenly turn back to blue, or her eyes would be mismatched, or her voice would betray her. She wondered how loud it got.

"If you don't go I'll end up breaking my promise," he practically wailed, and Raven made a decision, sliding under next to him resolutely.

"It's okay," she said firmly, "it doesn't count if you don't _mean_ to."

She didn't believe that. She didn't want anyone in her head, and that Charles had promised not to go looking had been more of a relief than she wanted to admit. But she held herself there anyway, trying not to think about anything important- and presently he fell asleep there, forehead touching hers.

*

ii. _Crushes_

Charles knew that Raven was of the opinion that he didn't spend enough time with other people. When he told her this was entirely hypocritical given that he could often count the number of times she left the flat each week on one hand, she huffed and said that if he was going to spend so much time at school then he should at least try and take advantage of the fact that it included being able to talk to people, and no, Charles, reading doesn't count as interaction by proxy. So eventually he conceded defeat and began going out in the evenings every now and again, and because he worried too much he took her as well sometimes, tried to encourage her to... he wasn't sure. To see that it was safe, it was fine? Her control had progressed to the point that she could keep a single form for hours at a time now, and there was no need to stay so hidden away.

He never raised the topic. Instinctively there was the awareness she wouldn't appreciate it. But it hung between them, and he was determined to make the point. She mostly stayed in the background while Charles flirted his way through a veritable battalion of women, admittedly, but he thought Raven appreciated it. At any rate, she continued accepting his offers, and he really didn't think she'd do so out of manners.

On this particular occasion he was making his way back to her table, determinedly not looking behind him at the woman he had just left (though he could _feel_ her glaring at the back of his head, in a way more literal than most people could say) when the look on her face as he found her again drew him up short.

It wasn't directed at him, and indeed she didn't seem to be aware he was even approaching- it was aimed at the woman he had just left, who had finally turned away and was in the midst of irritably ordering another drink. Raven had her chin propped on a hand and was staring at her with a look on her face somewhere between moody, grudgingly interested and something else that he hadn't ever seen before. Something calm, and a little awed, and entirely overwhelmed, like someone had just told her a secret and she'd finally found the answer to some riddle or other.

It wasn't a shock. Not really. She had dropped what Charles supposed she thought were vague hints, or maybe she just liked to think of them as vague because it was easier to pretend he wouldn't pick up on them. At any rate, he had. It was rather sweet, really, to think that she had found somebody to be interested in after so long without any such opportunity. _One more thing to worry about-_

No. Not now. He would worry later; and really, it'd be an easier thing to hide than being _blue._

He cleared his throat gently and set her cola down in front of her. With a start she turned to face him, and clutched it guiltily.

"She looks angry," she offered after a moment. "What did you do?"

"Why is it always my fault with you?" he responded automatically as he sat down, before smiling ruefully and shaking his head. "Nothing. Honestly."

"Sure," she said, clearly not believing him, and he could see the fight in her eyes to not let them slide back over to the other woman.

It was awkward. Charles didn't often feel awkward around Raven, years of proximity making it difficult to find things to be awkward _about_ because they'd done it all before, and that simply made it all the more obvious. He cleared his throat again to fill the silence and searched his mind frantically for something to say.

"It's fine," is what came out. She shot a look at him, and a thought rose to the top of his mind unbidden: _this would be easier at home_.

She looked at him steadily. Her eyes weren't the right colour for them being honest like this, which was ridiculous and _why_ would he think that? Something about this was being made more awkward by the body she... inhabited, he found with surprise. _Made awkward by normalcy?_ he wondered. _We lead strange lives indeed._

In the end he didn't have to elaborate. Raven just raised her glass and smiled, message received. They might have to talk more at home or they might not, but for now, he just returned the gesture and took it as a victory.

*

iii. _Smiles_

Raven knew that Charles liked to think of himself as closed off. It was exactly the kind of arrogance she had come to expect from him very early on in their relationship, the same arrogance that lead him to do things like announce military intel as some strange party trick and assume it would all work out fine because nothing could ever touch _him_ , oh no. She found it frustrating and endearing by turns, and she kept quiet about how easily read he truly was when you knew what you were looking for. Where his weak spots were, she supposed, although that felt like such a combative way of putting it and it wasn't that she was looking for anything like that, not really.

But Raven couldn't deny that it was nice to have even one thing over him. Just one thing.

Her gaze wandered back over to him talking to Sean about something she couldn't quite make out, no doubt concerning his training. There was the kind of 'training' edge to his smile that she had come to recognize without fault over the last couple of weeks, perfectly reassuring and in control and _professorly_ unless you knew him well enough to catch the slightly manic and entirely too enthusiastic glint in it. Raven would be worried about the glee he seemed to have when suggesting ridiculously dangerous training exercises if she didn't find them so exciting. As it stood, she just felt relieved nobody else knew him well enough yet to realise that the glee was there and wondered absently whether they'd be unnerved when they did. Probably. It wasn't what people expected, and Raven knew better than anyone what the reaction to people defying expectations tended to be.

With a start she came back to herself as she realised that he'd caught her looking, and the smile he had was gentler now, amused at what he probably thought of as a lapse on her part because Charles never looked anywhere without purpose or reason and wouldn't see the point in daydreaming. She raised an eyebrow to show she didn't care and he raised one in return; _something the matter?_ is what she heard in it, and she just rolled her eyes.

 _Bored,_ she mouthed silently, and entirely truthfully.

He rolled his eyes, every inch the disapproving elder brother. Completely absurd, because he was _always_ completely absurd in that staid way which he managed to trick people into taking seriously, and she couldn't help herself laughing a little at it all. Under her breath because it was how she instinctively acted in the presence of others, but laughter nonetheless. It was taking time to get used to the idea that she didn't have to hide here, and she still found herself falling into habits that allowed her to blend in, avoid attention; Charles was still the only one who regularly saw her as what she supposed would be her 'real' form, even if he always looked edgy when she called it that.

Suddenly the idea repulsed her, like an itch under her skin that she'd suddenly noticed and now couldn't ignore. She stuck her tongue out at him in what she felt was a perfectly mature attempt at bold defiance to make up for it, and sure enough caught Sean staring at her oddly. She carefully did not pay him the slightest bit of attention.

Charles looked disapproving on the surface, but Raven knew he found it funny really, even as he deliberately turned away and found something important to do. It was all there for anyone who cared to look, but she couldn't help but think slyly that really, that was a party of one. Sometimes she wondered if Charles himself even looked hard enough at how he felt, instead of looking so hard at everybody _else_. If asked to describe it, she supposed some might call it selfless.

Raven preferred obtuse.

Oh well. She knew him well enough to make up for his own failings. It was the least she could do, all things considered, and it wasn't a bad job. Not on days like this, with his smile warm and manic and her small rebellions exhilarating.

*

iv. _Fears_

She came to visit Charles in hospital.

It was late, and he could feel her enter the building in the back of his mind, no doubt in some entirely bland and indistinct form; perhaps even a male one, just to make sure nobody knew. But the ability to change form only extended to the physical and he knew it was her as easily as he knew anything, though he determinedly stopped 'looking' as she approached. Even broken promises had to count for something.

When she found his room, however, it was as he had most known her. Blonde, pale peach skin- and yet not, because he was sure that the Raven that Charles had known had never been somebody who looked quite like this. The effect was disconcerting, like the times he had seen Raven shift into someone he had known better than she and noticed all the shifts in body language; omitted nuances which only came from deep understanding that she lacked.

Blank. She felt blank to him, and he simply did not know how to react to that.

In the meantime she stared flatly at him, apparently content to wait for him to make the first move. After a moment he coughed and tried for a reassuring smile.

"Raven," and even as he tried to stay soft it sounded entirely too loud in the stark white room.

"Charles," Raven responded in turn, and he noticed that her voice was not as blank as her face. Her eyes flickered away and he saw the exact moment they settled on his wheelchair. "So it's true then?"

Pushing aside the brief thought about just where she had heard about that, he nodded. "Yes," he said, willing something more to come- but what more could he say than that?

When she turned her eyes back to look back at him, this time her face looked much more like the girl he had known, and without even having to think something in him relaxed and unfurled. She sat on the uncomfortable chair they put near every hospital bed to discourage people from outstaying their welcome like she didn't even know it was there, running on autopilot, and he sat back against the bed in kind.

"How have you been?" seemed the most pressing question. She looked well, in health at least, and he couldn't deny it was a weight off his shoulders to know she was at least... _Alive. Breathing. Fed._

"Fine. _We've_ been fine," she stressed.

"Good. That's good," and he didn't bother moderating the relief in his voice. The last few weeks had been painful in more ways than the physical.

"I missed you."

He felt the words as something almost tangible, sliding into his throat, lodged there. Before he knew what he was doing he had reached a hand across to cover hers, and he took it as a good sign that she didn't pull away.

"I miss you," he replies, tense entirely purposeful, "I miss you too. Raven-"

"Don't," she chided, and suddenly he almost felt as though he were the younger sibling. "I can't stay long. I just needed to know for sure..."

After a moment she shook her head, body almost curled in on itself, and she hadn't let go of her hand. When he took it away he was pretty sure her nails would have left little crescents in his palm, and he found himself wanting that, wanting proof she had come.

He knew her better than anyone, whatever Erik thought. It was written in every line of her face that she was scared, and he wondered how long she had been waiting to let it out. He held her hand tighter and wondered whether she was scared of _him_ with a kind of shame he didn't know he could even feel.

"I meant it, on the beach."

The fear shifted to confusion for a moment, and he elaborated. "That I was sorry. I have made some terrible mistakes, I think."

"Yeah," was her response, but her grip tightened, and he thought it was as much a concession to his apology as it was to the mistakes.

"You aren't quite looking how I expected," he added after another moment of silence, and it was true. After her choice, he had been expecting blue and... awkwardly unclothed. Not this.

She smiled wryly and, he thought, a touch bitterly. "Some things are easier said than done," was her only response.

Fear was something they both understood, and he left it at that, content to hold her hand for a moment longer.

*

v. _Distance_

It was more difficult to grow accustomed to moving around again than she'd expected. Raven had spent a long time doing this type of thing before she met Charles, but that was more than half a lifetime away now, and she hadn't ever lived across such great distances before. Now she moved across the globe at someone else's whims, and Raven was acutely aware that she was, not to put a fine point on it, _fucked_ if she were ever stranded without the others ( _left_ a part of her brain panicked, but she moved it aside)- she never knew the languages in countries where they weren't English, and there wasn't a penny to her name. Erik seemed to have proficiency in an improbable number of them and some way of dragging up money where necessary, and she couldn't help but wince at the dependency she had on him as a result. He talked about her independence at times, late at night and she wondered if he noticed that discrepancy.

Oh well. Food and shelter or communication; it was all the same really. She took what she could from who she could, Raven told herself, and refused to feel bad about it.

Erik told them that he moved the group so much because he didn't want Charles to come after them, didn't want him to be able to get a fix on where they were. The others muttered under their breath about paranoia and Emma asked dryly why he had that damn helmet if it didn't help with that long enough for them to set up shop somewhere. None of them mentioned these things within hearing range of Erik himself, but Raven privately thought that Emma probably would sooner or later and that the resulting fall out would be pretty spectacular.

For her part Raven kept quiet and didn't mention that actually, since she had been mailing to her brother every few weeks, it probably was for the best that they moved, all things considered.

She didn't see that it was such a big risk to do so, because to be honest, if Charles wanted to come after them, he could just look for _her_ ; Raven who he had grown up with, Raven who he could probably pick out from a million other minds without breaking a sweat. But he wouldn't because Charles was foolish and wanted Erik to go back on his own terms. Because Charles was arrogant and wanted Erik to admit he was wrong. Because Charles was _Charles_ , defensive and hidden and other things that Erik took for cowardice.

So Raven wrote to him, and knew that he took the gesture to mean that she trusted him to know where they were without threats. She also pretended to herself that it didn't mean that most of the time, because everyone was entitled to a few delusions. And sometimes when they stuck around for a little longer than normal she would receive replies back, though she was fairly sure they weren't coming through the conventional means they appeared to. The letters were all bound in a pile at the bottom of her bag, always, and though she never felt the need to re-read them, sometimes all it took was to think of them there and everything felt a little better.

She wouldn't go back. He asked at the end of every letter, and she thought he even felt it might happen eventually; they weren't requests just made for the sake of it, or out of obligation. But Raven had made her choice, and Charles making speeches about _not stirring things up_ and _setting a good example for the students_ by keeping her mask on didn't factor into that choice.

Charles talked about the school. He didn't talk about Moira, and she wondered for a while if calling him a hypocrite about what she was sure had happened was worth it. Sometimes he talked about research into mutations, the speed it progressed at and inane things they found. Raven talked about the fact that getting used to different climates all the time was a pain and how much she hated Emma constantly pushing into her head without warning; she alluded to Erik missing Charles, just vaguely enough for him to understand that the feeling was profound.

Neither of them wrote about much of importance, but the fact they had even the thinnest thread of connection left was all that could ever be important really, and so she held onto that thread and prayed she would never, ever want to let go.


End file.
